Attributes of God - Chapel Library

1 1 Published by Chapel Library 2603 West Wright St. Pensacola, Florida 32505 USA Sending Christ-centered materials from prior centuries worldwide Worldwide: please use the online downloads worldwide without charge. In North America: please write for a printed copy without charge. We do not ask for donations, send promotional mailings, or share the mailing list. Attributes of God by A. W. Pink Contents Preface 2 Chapter 1 The Solitariness of God 2 Chapter 2 The Decrees of God 4 Chapter 3 The Knowledge of God 6 Chapter 4 The Foreknowledge of God 8 Chapter 5 The Supremacy of God 10 Chapter 6 The Sovereignty of God 12 Chapter 7 The Immutability of God 14 Chapter 8 The Holiness of God 15 Chapter 9 The Power of God 18 Chapter 10 The Faithfulness of God 20 Chapter 11 The Goodness of God 23 Chapter 12 The Patience of God 24 Chapter 13 The Grace of God 26 Chapter 14 The Mercy of God 28 Chapter 15 The Lovingkindness of God 30 Chapter 16 The Love of God 32 Chapter 17 The Love of God to Us 34 Chapter 18 The Wrath of God 36 Chapter 19 The Contemplation of God 38 Index of Authors Quoted 40 The Attributes of God, by A.

2 W. Pink. First Printing 1930. First Chapel Library edition 1993. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright 1993 by Chapel Library (this edition), Pensacola, Florida. Permission is expressly granted to reproduce this material by any means, provided: 1) it is not charged for beyond a nominal sum for cost of duplication 2) this copyright notice and all the text on this page is included. A Study Guide is also available for this text, either in print or with this paperback text for online download from our web site. For copies or information on other Bible correspondence courses, please contact Mount Zion Bible Institute at the same address. 2 About the Author Arthur W. Pink was born in Nottingham, England in 1886, and born again of the Spirit of God in 1908. He studied at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, USA for only six weeks before beginning his pastoral work in Colorado. From there he pastored churches in California, Kentucky and South Carolina before moving on to Sidney, Australia for a brief period, preaching and teaching.

3 In 1934, He returned to his native land, England, and in 1940 took up permanent residence on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, remaining there until his death twelve years later in 1952. Most of his works, including The Attributes Of God, first appeared as articles in the monthly Studies In The Scriptures published from 1922 to 1953. Preface ACQUAINT NOW THYSELF WITH HIM, AND BE AT PEACE: thereby good shall come unto thee (Job 22:21). Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD (Jer 9:23,24). A spiritual and saving knowledge of God is the greatest need of every human creature. The foundation of all true knowledge of God must be a clear mental apprehension of His perfections as revealed in Holy Scripture.

4 An unknown God can neither be trusted, served, nor worshipped. In this book an effort has been made to set forth some of the principal perfections of the divine character. If the reader is to truly profit from his perusal of the pages that follow, he needs to definitely and earnestly beseech God to bless them to Him, to apply His truth to the conscience and heart, so that his life will be transformed thereby. Something more than a theoretical knowledge of God is needed by us. God is only truly known in the soul as we yield ourselves to Him, submit to His authority, and regulate all the details of our lives by His holy precepts and commandments. Then shall we know, if we follow on [in the path of obedience] to know the LORD (Hosea 6:3). If any man will do His will, he shall know (John 7:17). The people that do know their God shall be strong (Dan 11:32).

5 - Pink, 1930 Chapter 1 The Solitariness of God THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE IS PERHAPS NOT SUFFICIENTLY explicit to indicate its theme. This is partly due to the fact that so few today are accustomed to meditate upon the personal perfections of God. Comparatively few of those who occasionally read the Bible are aware of the awe-inspiring and worship-provoking grandeur of the divine character. That God is great in wisdom, wondrous in power, yet full of mercy, is assumed by many to be almost common knowledge; but, to entertain anything approaching an adequate conception of His being, His nature, and His Attributes , as these are revealed in Holy Scripture, is something which very, very few people in these degenerate times have attained unto. God is solitary in His excellency. Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

6 (Exo 15:11). Before all else In the beginning God (Gen 1:1). There was a time, if time it could be called , when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone. In the beginning God. There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but from everlasting. During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been 3 called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.

7 His sovereign will God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory. Do some of our readers imagine that we have gone beyond what Scripture warrants? Then our appeal shall be to the Law and the Testimony: Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be Thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise (Neh 9:5). God is no gainer even from our worship. He was in no need of that external glory of His grace which arises from His redeemed, for He is glorious enough in Himself without that. What was it that moved Him to predestinate His elect to the praise of the glory of His grace?

8 It was, as Ephesians 1:5 tells us, according to the good pleasure of His will. We are well aware that the high ground we are here treading is new and strange to almost all of our readers; for that reason it is well to move slowly. Let our appeal again be to the Scriptures. At the end of Romans 11, where the Apostle brings to a close his long argument on salvation by pure and sovereign grace, he asks, For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (vv. 34-35). The force of this is, it is impossible to bring the Almighty under obligations to the creature; God gains nothing from us. If thou be righteous, what givest thou Him? Or what receiveth He of thine hand? Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man (Job 35:7-8), but it certainly cannot affect God, who is all-blessed in Himself.

9 When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10) our obedience has profited God nothing. Nay, we go further; our Lord Jesus Christ added nothing to God in His essential being and glory, either by what He did or suffered. True, blessedly and gloriously true, He manifested the glory of God to us, but He added naught to God. He Himself expressly declares so, and there is no appeal from His words: My goodness extendeth not to Thee (Psa 16:2). The whole of that Psalm is a Psalm of Christ. Christ s goodness or righteousness reached unto His saints in the earth ( ), but God was high above and beyond it all. God only is the Blessed One (Mark 14:61, Greek). It is perfectly true that God is both honored and dishonored by men; not in His essential being, but in His official character.

10 It is equally true that God has been glorified by creation, by providence, and by redemption. This we do not and dare not dispute for a moment. But all of this has to do with His manifestative glory and the recognition of it by us. Yet had God so pleased He might have continued alone for all eternity, without making known His glory unto creatures. Whether He should do so or not was determined solely by His own will. He was perfectly blessed in Himself before the first creature was called into being. And what are all the creatures of His hands unto Him even now? Let Scripture again make answer: Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before Him are as nothing ; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity.